This question and many others were the focus of the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design’s (CIRD) capacity building call series that kicked off this past January. The calls are part of CIRD’s approach to providing communities access to the resources they need to convert their own good ideas into reality. The program offers annual competitive [...]Read More »

This is the second of a three-part series on transformative Placemaking. To read part one, click here. To read part three, click here. A great place is something that everybody can create. If vibrancy is people, as we argued two weeks ago, the only way to make a city vibrant again is to make room [...]Read More »

The following article was written for the Fall 2012 issue of Shelterforce magazine. Click here to view the original version on their website. ——————— You are never finished. That is one of PPS’s 11 principles for creating great community places. For anyone working to create a great “third place” in their neighborhood, it is critical [...]Read More »

Fifteen years ago, PPS created a new tool, the Place Diagram, that broke down the essential components of successful public spaces into for general categories: Access & Linkages, Comfort & Image, Sociability, and Uses & Activities. The diagram was a crystallization of knowledge gleaned from two decades working on public spaces, building on the pioneering research of William “Holly” Whyte. In [...]Read More »

In our Citizen Placemaker series, we chat with amazing and inspiring people from outside the architecture, planning, and government worlds (the more traditional haunts of Placemakers) whose work exemplifies how creating great places goes far beyond the physical spaces that make up our cities. Candice Davenport is a nurse who works on improving public health [...]Read More »

In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake changed the face of downtown Santa Cruz, damaging dozens of buildings and hobbling the local retail scene. The Cooper House, which had been a key public gathering space in this oceanfront city’s core, was ruined. When the site was re-developed, a larger building was placed along the street, and [...]Read More »

Depending on how much you love public markets (and we know that many of you love public markets a whole lot) you may have already heard that the West Side Market, the bustling heart of Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood for the past century, was shuttered for more than two weeks recently after a fire. Two [...]Read More »

Mark Plotz is the director of the National Center for Bicycling and Walking, a resident program of the Project for Public Spaces. What that means, in practice, is that Mark is the man who makes Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place happen! Mark’s been poring over the results of last September’s conference in Long Beach, CA, [...]Read More »

In 2009, the Project for Public Spaces (PPS), with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and in partnership with Columbia University, undertook a study to examine what market characteristics successfully attract low-income shoppers. The study also explored the obstacles that may prevent low income individuals from shopping at a farmers market when one existed [...]Read More »

On June 24-26th, 2013, Placemaking leaders from around the world will gather together with UN officials, representatives from international government agencies, NGOs, designers, change agents, mayors, local politicians, and other place-centered actors for The Future of Places, the first of three linked conferences that will develop a ‘Future of Places Declaration’ to influence the discussion [...]Read More »

It takes a village, the saying goes, to raise a child. Embedded within this age-old nugget of wisdom is the assertion that parenting is, at least in part, a public affair. From streets to parks, children learn so much from interacting with public spaces, both in terms of learning about their physical environment and interacting [...]Read More »

PPS Transportation Associate David M. Nelson is our resident expert on all things Omaha. When he heard that we were interviewing Omaha By Design director Connie Spellman for the Placemaking Blog, he was not at a loss for words! David had this to say: Growing up in Omaha wasn’t necessarily glamorous. In 1980s, Omaha was [...]Read More »